Potato beetles showed up in my garden this year, and I was ready- here’s what I did to get rid of them organically and naturally without harmful pesticides… and it actually worked! Did you know that potatoes are on the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen?” This is the top twelve produce items with the most […]

Oh, hi. Yes, we’re still here. Here’s what’s been happening on the homestead! Planting and More Planting Putting things into the earth and watching them grow has been our whole life for the past two months. And weeding.. Oh the weeding! After having our old barn buried and the ground smoothed and leveled, we found ourselves […]

You might take one look at our garden and wonder if we’re preparing to be invaded by werewolves, vampires, and other evil spirits. Currently, a good 1/6 of our garden space is planted in garlic! My next post should really be on how to combat garlic-breath! Have you seen “garlic soap” before? If you’ve tried it, I’d […]

Every time I write one of these monthly update posts, I think to myself: “a whole month has passed already?!” Every single time. I can’t even believe spring is here and half over already. It’s been a busy one! An Apple a Day We’re turning into pretty serious (crazy?) apple growers- we have 26 different […]

Basil: the quintessential smell of summer around here! If only there was a way to preserve it… Oh, but there is! And I’m not talking about basil-scented soap and basil hand lotion. I can’t quite decide if these products are a good way to get a basil fix, or completely weird?! While I agree that there […]

Gardening with Chickens by Lisa Steele should be your go-to reference for making your chickens work in your garden, and making your garden work for your chickens! When we got our first flock of egg-layers several years ago, I knew three things: I wanted to raise them as naturally as possible, I wanted them to […]

Overall we had a lovely start to the winter season with unseasonably warm temperatures, which means the chickens got to free range for a while longer, and we were harvesting kale, chard, parsley and celery from the garden for a record amount of time! The holidays were filled with family and good food, and we […]

My parents planted a Christmas tree farm when I was just a young girl, so I grew up learning to make holiday decorations to sell for extra spending money at the tree farm. As a 16-year-old, I was a Christmas craft extraordinaire! And also a really big geek, but that’s a story for a different day. Evergreen Kissing Balls, […]

Bye Bye Barn So, one really big thing happened this month that has taken a lot of our time, energy, and brain space. We essentially “sold” our old 100+ year old big beautiful barn to a reclaimed wood furniture company. The back of this barn started to cave in during the last month, so we […]

Welcome to the homestead monthly, a collection of all the major events that happen on our homestead every month! Unfortunate Surprise Honey Harvest You may remember that I reported (just last month!) our meager honey harvest, and that all three of our colonies were full of plenty of honey and looking great going into winter. Well boy was I […]